I watched an amazing busker the other day in London, at Leicester Square.
He was singing with a voice that would make you melt.
He was in his forties, I guess, and his singing stopped me in my tracks – as it did many other passers-by.
I would say he was very attractive a few years ago, but life on the streets had taken its toll somewhat.
The pain in his voice as he delivered the songs was unreal.
I wanted to talk to him and ask him to come on my radio show, as I wanted to know his story.
The police moved him on, and appeared to have an issue with him.
I sadly had to go to a meeting so I could not wait around but I’ve not been able to get him out of my mind.
I had a wonderful experience in the 60s with buskers.
People forget who started off as street performers.
Here’s a few names: Ed Sheeran, Rod Stewart, BB King, Janice Joplin.
Their names may be part of musical history now, but it wasn’t always that way for them.
So these guys put some hard graft in before they hit the big time.
Ed Sheeran often talked about his past sleeping rough in the London underground, and kipping on his mate’s sofas.
Every busker you walk past will have their own story, whether they be a juggler, bagpipe player, Romany street entertainer or singer.
There was once a four-year old little boy who blew a toy trumpet in Regent’s Park in 1957.
People would travel just to see him.
Lots of buskers years ago, used to sing to the crowds outside the theatres in London, but for some reason this has stopped.
Liverpool has its share of buskers.
There is a wealth of talent on our streets.
There are of course some dodgy ones, one in particular, and I’m sure you’ve seen him outside Boots in Church Street.
In fact, in the height of the pandemic I saw him a couple of times outside Tesco’s on the Wirral near Tranmere Rovers.
The late Alan Williams, who used to own the Blue Angel club and was the original booking agent, and first manager of the Beatles, was one of life’s characters who came up with some wonderful ideas.
One of them was a buskers show at the Liverpool Philharmonic, and he wanted me to host it.
I can’t tell you how magical it was, but the audience had no idea on the headaches trying to hold the sell-out show together.
Alan scoured the country to find the best buskers.
We got about 25 acts and knew that we would lose a lot of them.
We had a juggler, who juggled with knives, a man who danced on snow skis, a sand dancer, who brought no sand.
The list was endless.
We even had the worst ventriloquist you’ve ever seen.
Even worse than Peter Brough and Archie Andrews.
Remember him on radio all those years ago?
That’s right, a ventriloquist on radio - and he had 15 million listeners.
I digress..
It was a mishmash of acts that just worked.
So what was the problem?
Well, simply, most of them had a drink or drug problem, so we had to keep them together in one place.
If one sneaked out to the toilet we were guaranteed to lose him.
After a lot of headaches when it finally happened on stage it was a bit special.
Plus, we had a big bonus topping the bill, the one man band, Don Partridge the busker shot to fame and signed with EMI records.
In fact, he had two top ten hits in 1968, Rose and Blue Eyes.
He was the icing on the cake.
After his success he went back to the streets, as he missed his roots.
He sadly died aged 68 of a suspected heart attack.
So that wonderful sell-out show was another experience to file in my memory bank.
One I will never forget.
